Overthinking It

This Week in Catcher Framing, 5/18

Framing-related links of the week
It’s been an eventful week for framing on the internet. If you're here because you’re interested in catcher receiving skills, you might also want to take a look at these three articles:

Estimated historical framing: More great work by Max Marchi, who used Retrosheet pitch-by-pitch data to estimate framing performance going back to 1988. He also took a look at how receiving skills age. Next on his to-do list: estimated framing for minor leaguers, and the quantification of game-calling.

How teams are embracing framing: I did a feature for Grantland on what teams are doing to target and cultivate good receiving skills. After some background on the importance of framing, much of which would be familiar to BP readers, I got into how the Astros are focusing on framing thanks to our old friend Mike Fast, how the Yankees have made it a priority, and the degree to which it can be taught. Maybe the most interesting quote, courtesy of Yankees catcher Chris Stewart:

"Within the last two or three years it's taken over as one of the highly sought-after skill sets for a defensive catcher," he says. "The sabermetrics stuff coming out, they put a value on it. We actually have a number for it. It's not a 'This guy's good' or 'This guy's bad,' it's like, 'This guy's this good' and 'This guy's this bad.'"

It didn’t take Brian McCann long to make his presence felt on the framing leaderboards. Even if he weren’t hitting the way he is, his receiving skills would make him worth playing. According to Max Marchi’s model, McCann’s framing skill has saved the Braves almost 125 runs over the past five seasons. That’s with over twice as many called pitches caught as Jose Molina, of course, but still.

Evan Gattis’ framing performance continues to rate well, too. The less Gerald Laird, the better for the Braves.

Hank Conger continues to look like a skilled receiver in the Mike Scioscia mold.

Two Molinas and a Lucroy in the top 10. Sometimes the world makes sense.

Going to give Henry Blanco a pass for appearing on this list. Being R.A. Dickey’s personal catcher is a difficult job.

As I noted in the Grantland feature I linked above, Kevin Towers told me that Nick Hundley “stood up so high he would block the umpire from a lot of the low strikes, and it was just frustrating.” Hundley’s framing rated particularly poorly during Towers’ last two seasons in San Diego.

Molina sets up way on the outside corner here so that the pitch off the edge is centered in his body. He also angles himself to give the umpire a good look. Ryan Hanigan uses this technique to great effect, as he explains in great detail in the Q&A coming Monday. Other people I spoke to pointed out that while this method this might work well, not every catcher is comfortable catching this way.

This isn’t a swinging strike, but I would guess that the check swing influences the umpire’s decision. Here’s how this Headley plate appearance ended:

Another check swing, and this time a high strike. Hard to isolate Molina’s influence here. The check swing might have the same effect as a good frame. (Check swings are one of the next topics I plan to tackle.)

Stewart up to his usual tricks. In the Q&A with him I’ll be publishing at BP in the coming week, the 6’4” catcher talks a bit about the difficulty of framing low pitches. Stewart suffered a groin pull on Thursday, but his MRI came up clean, so he seems to have avoided the disabled list.

The reception looked a little tentative, and visibly clenching the non-glove hand while catching the ball is something I’ve seen Ryan Doumit do. But Ruiz does prevent the ball from moving any farther inside after he catches it, which is the crucial thing.

Shoppach caught that one as far forward as he could to prevent it from sinking too far to get the strike, and he did a good job of sticking it. That’s a difficult call to get on 0-2, when the strike zone shrinks.

This one was inside all the way, and it ended the game. Jerry Layne is fairly generous with his strike calls outside to lefties, which could help explain the previous pitch from Capps to Nix, but he doesn’t seem to have any particular tendency to call strikes inside to righties. Mariano Rivera lives on the edges and gets a wider zone than the typical pitcher, so that’s probably part of it, but Romine did a good job of getting inside the ball and catching it with his glove already moving back toward the plate. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me if the Yankees replaced the injured Francisco Cervelli with another strong framer. Maybe we’ll have a better idea of Romine’s capabilities when Max finishes working on his estimated framing stats for minor leaguers.

Rodriguez wanted the call, but didn’t get it. McKenry has historically rated poorly as a receiver, but it doesn’t appear that he did anything awful here. Maybe he set up too far outside, so that the pitch didn't appear centered.

See how Flowers reorients his glove at the last second and kind of cradles or scoops the ball? Hanigan told me how costly that can be. He tries to keep the glove from making any extreme movements, shifting his arm instead if he has to.

Is there a lesser known backup catcher on a contending team than Tony Cruz? A couple weeks ago, I did a guest post at McCovey Chronicles when Grant Brisbee was on paternity leave. The post was about how the Giants were carrying three catchers, and how one of them never played. I included some data on the players with the least playing time to that point who had been on a big-league roster since Opening Day, and Cruz was at the top of the list. One of Yadier Molina’s many skills is the ability to stay healthy and productive despite almost never taking an inning off. Poor Tony Cruz.

In the small sample that we have, Cruz rates as a below-average receiver, according to Max’s stats, but Miller missed his spot on this one. Baxter still took a strike toward the dugout, expecting to be rung up.

Might be interesting to interview an umpire on this topic. It's essentially a tactic of deception/obfuscation. Do umpires resent it, or do they just see it as a game, like pitcher trying to nibble at the corners and 'widen the zone'?

Very curious to see Romine's framing ability (or lack thereof) as he catches more. I also wonder when the Yankees start teaching a young catcher framing. And to complete the trifecta, I am very curious to find out Brian Cashman's response to the question: "You said you guys are big on framing, how much did framing play into the decision to trade Jesus Montero?"

Tried to talk to the Yankees' roving catching instructor, Julio Mosquera, for the Grantland story, but the Yankees' media relations people (who have been very helpful) weren't able to track him down for me in time. He's worked a lot with Cervelli and Romine.

The Cashman question would be an interesting. I'll ask him if/when I get a chance.